What Is Activated Carbon In HEPA Air Purifiers?

Activated carbon in HEPA air purifiers may seem weird to you, unless you own a water purification system which uses carbon or are an aquarium hobbyist. Even so, you may not know exactly what it is activated carbon does.

What Does Activated Carbon Do In A HEPA Air Purifier?

Choosing HEPA air purifiers is often the first time most people encounter activated carbon. They start their search because of allergies or asthma, but they have no real thought how these machines work. As they look deeper, they’ll start to learn that odors and chemicals are what’s really causing the vast majority of the issues they’re trying to remedy. Most quality HEPA air purifiers are designed to eliminate allergens as well as odors and chemicals in the air. This is where the activated carbon comes in.

Activated Carbon Before HEPA Air Purifiers

Activated carbon has really been around for quite a while, and though it sounds quite scientific, our ancestors have made excellent use of it for at least the last two centuries. Back then, they already knew of activated carbon’s extraordinary absorption qualities. In the early 1900’s, the stuff was produced and sold commercially in the form of a powder. At the time it was only used to remove color from sugar or taste or smell from water. Although we didn’t know it at the time, that was barely the tip of what this stuff is capable of. In World War I, the military learned that they could use activated carbon in gas masks, filtering chemical agents from the air for the soldiers. The soldiers also used it for water purification, just like their ancestors. By this point, it was also available commercially as a granular form instead of just powder, which was when it started finding uses in even more situations.

What Does ”Activated” Mean?

Most people have a general thought of what carbon is – it’s a mineral. The most basic example would probably be charcoal. Activated carbon is what you get after heat is used on the carbon to drive all of the impurities out, leaving room for more to take their place. Reckon of it as a sponge, only instead of using pressure to extract the contents, we’re using heat. Once the activated carbon is full, it can really be reactivated by re-heating, though this is considered by most to be both impractical and perilous. So, in this case, activated basically means empty.

Are There Different Types Of Activated Carbon?

Basically, yes. Though there are different types of activated carbon, and it’s often described in various ways, all activated carbon is nothing more than amorphous carbon-based materials. These materials all have many holes, also known as a high degree of porosity, which cover a relatively large surface area. This is what gives the material such awesome absorbent quality, enabling it to work so extremely well in filtering both air and water.

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